


like drowning

by Aza_Marael



Category: Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Contemplation of Suicide, Depression, Panic Attacks, it's one of those days, my entire day has been about suicide it seems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 00:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aza_Marael/pseuds/Aza_Marael
Summary: “I dreamed I was drowning.” He doesn’t mention the gun. Or the knife. He doesn’t think about the lonely silence outside of this moment.It was always the silence.(Sometimes, all it takes is a phone call to find the surface when you're drowning.)





	like drowning

**Author's Note:**

> “What is depression like?” He whispered.
> 
> “It’s like drowning. Except you can see everyone around you breathing.”

Nowadays, it’s rare for Akira to dream. When he did, it was usually of either the Velvet Room or the Velour Room. It’s even rarer for him to have nightmares.

He doesn’t remember what it was about, doesn’t even know if this unsettling feeling in his chest could really qualify as a nightmare.

Morgana’s out tonight, and Akira’s alone for once. He normally revels in the lack of a furry weight on his chest. But tonight, he’s drowning.

He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until the click jars him out of whatever state he’s in. Joker’s gun is in his hands and it’s the first time he’s truly grateful that Iwai sold him fakes. The realization wakes him, and Akira takes a deep, shuddering breath. And another.

The firearm clatters to the ground with his body, and Akira curls in on himself. The world spins, and he’s hyperventilating, isn’t he? He should do something about that, should find some way to calm down. Morgana usually told him to take deep breaths, right? In, out, in—

Akira chokes on a sob and he’s drowning in the silence. All around him are flashing lights and loud voices and the cold steel of handcuffs. Everything’s blue and there are prison bars and a deep voice and it _hurts_ —

Arsene’s voice echoes in his mind and _it hurts everything hurts it feels like he’s shattering—_

He screams but there’s no one around to hear.

_Oh_ , he thinks, _this is what the nightmare was about._

His head is splitting in two and Arsene’s voice is only making things worse, jagged pieces grating together. There’s something wrong with him. The world fades in and out of focus and Akira takes in another choked sob. He just wants the pain to stop. Anything that will make it stop.

A hazy glint of metal makes itself known, brought into vision from the way he’s writhing on the floor. Akira reaches for Joker’s dagger.

His hand grabs hold of a decidedly not sharp object, and for a moment, the world comes into focus. His phone. He turns it on.

The screen lights up with the conversation he’d had with his brother yesterday.

Yu.

Akira takes a shaky little breath. The pain is visceral. He is drowning in broken glass.

He doesn’t even realize he’s dialed a number until a muffled voice mumbles, “Hello?”

_It’s three in the morning_ , he thinks distantly. Yu was asleep. They both had school tomorrow.

The logic doesn’t stop his mind from screaming for help. Akira takes a deep, shuddering breath. And another.

“…Nii-san…?”

He’s so tired. Everything hurts and he is splitting from his head to that empty space in his chest where the heart should be. He breathes and his body shakes.

“Akira? Are you alright?” Yu sounds awake, so much more awake than him. The world is no longer fading in and out of focus and Akira wants to cry in relief. It’s such a small thing, but he feels a little less like drowning.

“I just… I need to know I’m not alone.”

There’s a moment of silence. Akira’s hands shake with the thought that somehow _his brother is gone_. Then a warm voice speaks and Akira sobs quietly.

“My midday class got cancelled today, so I went to the Catfee Cup for lunch. It’s a little café near campus where a friend of mine works.”

His voice is steady, soothing, and Akira counts his breaths in time with Yu’s voice. In. Out. In. Out.

“The owner has this really fat cat. His name is Toffee. Toffee’s not usually a fan of people, other than his owner of course, but I won him over. I actually sneak him food every once in a while, but don’t go around telling anyone that. I could get in trouble.” A breathy little chuckle. “When the owner found out Toffee let me pet him without some kind of backlash, he was so pleased I now have a lifetime discount there. I haven’t told any of my friends aside from the one that works there, of course. They’d probably kill me to steal my identity.”

Akira continues to breathe, just focusing on Yu’s voice. He stops shaking. Yu keeps talking for a long time, just rambling on about nothing as Akira closes his eyes and lets a voice not his own fill the silence until it’s not so suffocating.

“Thanks,” Akira mumbles tiredly, when Yu seems to run out of things to say. He can almost hear the sigh of relief on the other end.

“Of course,” a pause, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Akira starts to shake his head, but really, he’s too tired to put up appearances. He’s lying on his side on the dusty floor. The metallic glint of Joker’s dagger in the moonlight looks back at him. He rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

“It was just a bad dream.”

He half-expects Yu to mock him for it, even though the older boy would never do such a thing.

“About what?”

Akira pauses. “I dreamed I was drowning.” He doesn’t mention the gun. Or the knife. He doesn’t think about the lonely silence outside of this moment.

It was always the silence.

“…I dream about the dark.” Yu pauses this time. Akira waits. “Sometimes, it’s darkness surrounding me, suffocating. And sometimes, it’s just an absence of light. I don’t know which one is worse.”

Akira doesn’t know either.

“The silence is the worst, for me. More than the not breathing.” He doesn’t talk about the voices in his head. He doesn’t think about the slow fracturing of his heart.

In the brief quiet before Yu responds, there is a mountain of things neither of them say. Even though they want to.

“Do you dream a lot?”

Did Igor count? Did Gabriel?

“Not really. Do you?”

Yu hums as he thinks, a sound to fill the quiet spaces between. “Not so much anymore. Sometimes, though, my memories feel a lot like dreams.”

Akira chuckles breathily. “Yeah, they do.” He doesn’t know what else to say, but he can’t stand the thought of being alone again. “You talk about cats a lot,” he says, just because he can.

Yu laughs at that. It’s quiet, but a real smile tugs at Akira’s lips at the sound. “I do. Yosuke calls me the crazy cat lady.”

“Sounds about right.” He waits for the laugh to taper off. “I’ve got a cat myself.”

“Oh?” Yu doesn’t mention the fact that he already knows that. He just plays along.

“Morgana. He’s a stray I picked up off the street one day.” Something like that, anyway. “Boss complains about him a lot, but he’s always feeding him extra curry and stuff.”

“Sounds like me.”

Akira wrinkles his nose, more in exaggeration than actual disgust. He’s starting to remember what it means to be some semblance of normal. “Ew, gross. Boss is great, but I don’t want him for a brother. He already tries to give me tips for getting girls.”

Yu laughs again, and something in Akira relishes in it. “That reminds me, have I told you about the time I—”

“Stop, no, I don’t want to hear anymore.” Akira groans, closing his eyes and allowing the smile to form this time when Yu laughs again. He wants to drown in the sound.

He almost says as much. He doesn’t.

“…Akira?”

He blinks, opening his eyes again at the sound of his brother’s voice. He’d almost drifted off.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I just wanted to see if you’d fallen asleep on me or not.” He can hear the smile in Yu’s voice.

“Mm. Sorry for waking you. I know it’s late.” _Or early_ , his traitorous mind supplies.

“Don’t be. I’m glad you called.” Akira almost believes him.

He sits up, arms shaky under his weight. The gun is still sitting where he’d dropped it. Akira thinks about the click it’d made when he pulled the trigger. He entertained the thought of what would’ve happened if it’d been real.

After a long moment, he whispers, “I thought I was going to die tonight.”

Yu doesn’t goes quiet for a time. Akira’s admission hangs between them, heavy in the silence. For a brief minute, he thinks of them as the stones dragging him to the bottom. He’s not sure if he has the energy to fight his way to the top anymore.

“…I’m happy you didn’t.” Yu’s voice is quiet, even more than usual. It’s a barely heard confession. “I don’t think I could handle losing you too.”

Akira closes his eyes to the guilt that wells up in his lungs. He tries not to think about all the people he’s lost. All the people they’ve lost. His mind goes instead to the letters, hidden away in a box. Yu understood loneliness more than anyone else.

“I’m happy I didn’t, too.” He breathes it like a prayer. A promise for the future.

He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t drowning. His brother was right here, a phone call away.

“Good night, Yu.”

Yu doesn’t question it. He doesn’t say a word.

“Good night, Akira.”

The phone beeps as the call ends, and Akira stares at it for several minutes. His messages with Yu sit on the screen. The last one read, _thank you_.

After another minute, Akira pushes himself gradually to his feet. His limbs were heavy with exhaustion, lacking in strength. He sets his phone on the windowsill by his bed after checking that his alarm for the next morning is set. He turns away, and then doubles back. It was almost four. He set another alarm for five minutes later, just in case.

He takes Joker’s dagger, places it back where it should be, away from prying eyes. He keeps his gaze firmly away from the moonlit gleam of the blade. He then picks up the gun. It sits in his hand, disturbingly real, a weight in his palm. Akira places a finger above the trigger. He doesn’t fire.

The gun is returned to its proper place by the dagger. Out of sight, out of mind.

Akira clambers into bed, lying on his back. He stares up at the ceiling, and the migraine is a distant memory. Akira takes a deep breath. And another. His lungs are not filling with water. _Tonight_ , he reminds himself. Tonight, he is not going to drown.

Nowadays, it’s rare for Akira to dream. It’s even rarer for him to have nightmares.

He closes his eyes.

Akira dreams of the ocean. He dreams of floating.

**Author's Note:**

> So that happened. I'm not gonna lie before this I wrote an 8-page story for my creative writing workshop about suicide as well. Writing about it helps stave off the oncoming breakdown a little longer. It's been one of those days.  
> When it's really bad, sometimes I call my best friend. He lives 5 hours away from me now, but he doesn't question me calling him when I want to not drown in my own thoughts post-attack. I've only called him once during one, and he just talked about his day and his lizard, no questions asked.  
> If you've got friends like that, you're pretty lucky I think.  
> (If you want to talk to me, I don't mind.)


End file.
